ortion of one for every 60,000
inhabitants, every two years: and the second of two Senators for each
State every four years. The Judiciary consists of the Supreme and other
courts, the judges of the first being elected, and the business of the
body relates to law and justice concerning Federal, political, and
international matters. The Executive in Mexico consists of a single
depositary of authority--the President, who, with the vice-president,
is elected, and who enter upon office on the 1st of December, for terms
of six years. The Constitution which all these officials swear to
uphold is that first brought to being on February 5, 1857, with various
modifications. By the Reform Laws of 1859, and their additions of 1873,
the Church and State are absolutely independent of each other, and the
power and functions of the ecclesiastical authority are rigidly
defined. The Federation consists of thirty-one States and
"territories," which latter are subject to Federal control and
regulation of their internal _regime_, unlike the former. The States
are governed by Governors.

Mexico has, therefore, well established all the machinery of a
republic, wherein equal rights of man and the sovereignty of the people
are well set forth. How do these excellent methods and theories work
out in practice as regards the social system and inhabitants? A
republic in name, Mexico shares with Spanish-American countries
generally, social conditions which are far from being embodied in the
real meaning of that designation. It is not necessary to dwell much
upon this palpable fact, and its reason is not far to seek. The
communities of the New World which Spain conquered were inhabited by
inferior peoples who were easily enslaved, or who were already subject
to autocratic forms of government. Every Spaniard who arrived
there--were he a noble of Castile or a common boor from his native
Iberian province--was full of the arrogance and superiority, sometimes
fancied, generally real, of the civilised European, and this spirit
burst into full bloom amid the environment of such countries as Mexico
and Peru. Thus an autocratic race was established whose class
distinctions are as strong and enduring as those of the most
class-ridden countries of Europe. It would be impossible to expect
other conditions yet, with a great mass of the people being of Indian
race, and coming on almost imperceptibly towards civic knowledge and
intellectual advancement. Scarcely 1